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sunset-49383_1920-300x225For more than three months, police departments in Mississippi have seized property from individuals with no legal authority. Law enforcement agencies say they did not notice the relevant law had lapsed.

That law had allowed police agencies to seize cash or property suspected of being involved with illicit drugs unless the owner challenged it in court within 30 days of the seizure. This procedure is called “administrative forfeiture” and was used for seizures which totaled less than $20,000. For larger sums, “judicial forfeiture” was used. Judicial forfeiture requires law enforcement agencies to sue in court in order to have a judge sanction the forfeiture. The burden of proof for judicial forfeitures is also higher than for administrative forfeitures.
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action-business-container-1267338-300x200The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) has proposed a 13.4 percent reduction in workers’ compensation insurance rates for employers in Florida. The proposal will be reviewed on October 17 by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR). If approved, this reduction—which would come into effect on January 1, 2019—would be the third such reduction in rates since 2016.

“Constant improvement in loss experience is the primary driver underlying the filing,” explained the NCCI in a statement. The 13.4 percent reduction reflects a downward trend nationwide. According to the report, “the long-term decline in claim frequency has continued to more than offset moderate increases in claim severity.”
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money-eye-300x169Interior designer Antonio DiMarco was arrested on October 10 for allegedly stealing more than a million dollars from clients to finance his own lavish lifestyle.

DiMarco, 42, is charged with money laundering, two counts of grand theft of more than $100,000, and obtaining property worth over $50,000 by fraud. He was ordered held on $400,000 bond during a court hearing Thursday.

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blur-car-driving-300x195Maydelis Pulido of Hialeah, Florida was arrested on October 11 for allegedly hitting an elderly man and leaving the scene without stopping to administer aid or call for help. The elderly man, who has been identified as 79-year-old Orlando Quiala of Miami Beach, died at a nearby hospital.

Pulido, 23, is currently charged with one count of leaving the scene of a crash involving a death. She is being held on $10,000 bond at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. More charges are expected to be filed. The press did not name an attorney for Pulido.

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bills-cash-collection-47344-300x212In the early hours of January 10, 2017, Zhimin Peng of Chicago was traveling through Boone County, Missouri when he was pulled over by Deputy Patrick Richardson. Peng had been driving his rental car at 94 mph. Together with Peng in the car was Ting Wei Huang. They told Richardson that they were on a short break from college and were traveling from Chicago to San Francisco.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Trooper Matt Halford soon joined Richardson. Halford obtained permission to search Huang’s possessions. When Halford opened a bag in the trunk, he saw it contained a large amount of cash. Another officer, Kevin Purdy of the Columbia Police Department arrived with his drug dog, Duncan; the dog alerted officers to the odor of narcotics in several bags in the trunk. The bags contained nearly $627,000 in cash.
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